The digital scribe

The aim of this research is to develop a digital scribe to take over many routine clinical documentation tasks using artificial intelligence (AI) to support clinical decision making. The digital scribe has the potential to enhance clinical encounters and re-emphasise patient care over documentation. Digital scribes are also likely to be the gateway in the clinical workflow for more advanced support for diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic tasks.

Intelligent documentation support systems (DocSS) are an emerging class of technology and are in their infancy in medicine. Digital scribes raise a number of important issues for clinical practice. As with all information technology, digital scribes bring new patient safety risks, the potential for automation bias, the temptation to create more detailed records and a change in the nature of the record with significant medico-legal ramifications.

The focus of the digital scribe research is to investigate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) using machine learning in three broad areas:

Physician assisted documentation

Automated documentation systems

Intelligent clinical environments

Intelligent documentation support systems will be transformational for clinical practice. Such a change will however require the active engagement of the clinical community, focussing on quality and safety, and in shaping technology design and clinical work.